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The Sunday papers from across the state, noting Auburn’s championship victory … You can click on the papers for a link to the papers’ respective websites.
They arranged here only in order of their respective image height.
For whatever reason it always seems to me that the post-championship game front pages aren’t as attractive as the post-Iron Bowl designs. To the papers’ credit, however, that isn’t the only story dominating their copy.
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The local police closed the intersection of College and Magnolia after the SEC championship game so people could celebrate. Later in the evening, when Ohio State stumbled against Michigan State, boosting Auburn into the BCS championship hunt, they closed the intersection again.
It was still closed when we finally got there, about an hour later as the revelry continued. Here are a few pictures:
People were having a grand time.
What do you know, David Housel was right last spring.
Who would have guessed he would be proven prophetic so quickly.
The setting, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The scene, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The stars, Auburn and Missouri. The extras, 60,000+ Auburn fans and several nice folks from Missouri. The ratio was overwhelming, but, of course, Auburn is just over an hour away. These things happen.
We made the trip with our friend Sally Ann. We had lunch with Kim and Murph and Jared and more. We saw some old friends before the game. We saw friends after the game. We had a nice time visiting with Missouri folks during the game. It was a fine day.
The best sign of the day:
Yep. No miracles needed. Just a lot of offense and some situational defense. But before you get to all that, here’s an almost-fair representation of the fan ratio:
Met this genius. I asked if he left the tags on his Missouri so he could take them back to the store after the game. His son said he did. Brilliant. Not “Let me sell these tickets and get some Christmas money or a mortgage payment” but, instead, “Let me see if I can make something funny out of this.”
Well, he saw a show, for sure. (Also that picture got picked up by CBS and plenty of other folks. It was seen by more than 216,000 Twitter accounts. Crazy.)
Cassanova McKinzy and Dee Ford say hello to James Franklin. That guy is tall and statuesque. He doesn’t take a drop, and he’s capable of picking apart a defense. Also, he can run. He did all of those things today, he also met more defenders than he liked:
Tre Mason, who is a man:
Tre Mason, who ran a lot:
Cassanova McKinzy pressures James Franklin again. McKinzy had something of a breakout game, leading the team in tackles:
See? Franklin just stands there, towering over everyone and flicking the ball to whomever he likes. He’s a serious threat:
Ricardo Louis, the hero of the miracle at Jordan-Hare, just running your standard jet sweep. He picked up 43 yards on three carries:
Tre Mason, who is a man, broke Bo Jackson’s school record for total yards in a single season:
Tre Mason, who is a man, also broke Cam Newton’s school record for most touchdowns in a season. He came within four yards (four!) of breaking the single-game rushing record, which has stood for 70 yards.
These guys up front are the ones that make it all happen. No one has talked about them much, but there’s at least one eventual first-rounders in there and at least three NFL caliber players. They have been pushing defenses around all season. From top to bottom: Greg Robinson, Alex Kozan, Reese Dismukes , Chad Slade, Avery Young and, behind them, fullback Jay Prosch.
Nick Marshall was 9 of 11 for 132 yards and a big touchdown pass to Sammie Coates:
Marshall also had 101 yards and a touchdown rushing:
Four different players scored on the ground for Auburn, including speedster Corey Grant:
The wirecam is carrying the ball to Ricardo Louis:
Tre Mason scored four touchdowns, cementing his incredible argument for Heisman consideration.
Anyone that’s watched this team play this year should know by now to never sell those young men short. There are 12 seniors on the team and in their four and five years they’ve been to a championship, lost teammates, lost family, gone 3-9, changed coaches and now are celebrating in confetti.
Auburn has done all they can do. The Tigers are 12-1 and SEC champions. They wrapped their season against a resurgent Georgia, top-ranked Alabama and a top 10 Missouri squad. All of those teams had great statistical defenses and Auburn got statistically better against each one. They are on the short list of best teams in school history and easily the most entertaining squad in recent memory. The final today was 59-42. There were only fleeting moments of defense but, if you didn’t watch, the game never felt that close.
Oh, and by virtue of Michigan State downing the laughable Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game. We watched that in a chain restaurant in Newnan, Ga., where we ran into more friends. Because of that game, Auburn is once again going to the BCS championship game.
We sit near people in Jordan-Hare Stadium that waited 53 years, from 1957 to 2010, to see another championship run. Now we’re going to watch Auburn chase a championship for a second time in just four years. My. Goodness. War Eagle.
The SEC championship game is in Atlanta tomorrow. Auburn will be there, facing Missouri. There are a lot of signs like this around town just now.
We’ll be there too. Auburn and Mizzou each received 16,000 tickets. Auburn makes theirs ridiculously difficult to acquire. Missouri was kind enough to simply sell them online, so a lot of Auburn folks bought their tickets from Missouri. Given the proximity, and the weather out their way, it should be something of a home game for the team in blue and orange.
It is hard to believe, and easy to get caught up in. Another conference championship is a possibility, just four years removed from the last one and one trip around the sun from last year’s unfortunate season and we’re going to watch a championship game tomorrow. Hard to believe.
Things to read … This has been making the rounds. A Stanford student wrote this about the Iron Bowl:
Stanford beat Notre Dame, but all we can talk about is the SEC and its raucous finale of Auburn-Alabama. And for once, I have no problem with that.
Even as a West Coast man, I cannot tear my eyes away from the Southland drama that exploded into being on Saturday night. It was the single most unlikely play in football unfolding at the absolute perfect moment. It remains wondrous and unknowable, some quantum shiver in nature slowly solidifying in our minds. As I write, the eyes of a thousand sportswriters still flicker desperately across the ghostly pages of history, searching for some apt comparison or even just something to describe what happened — even just words.
Now, more than ever, there are no words.
That guy is pretty good. Meanwhile, I turned my Iron Bowl post into a larger story with bigger pictures. Slightly new text, much more interesting format. You can read it again here.
Speaking of photos, When White House Photos Are ‘Visual Press Releases’.
Also speaking of photos, here is a photographer being tackled by security for trying to do his job and photograph a protest. Little by little, we’ll chill journalists.
This dog is a cat burglar:
That’ll be the day’s cutest video. This one, a time lapse from the space station, will be the most awesome:
And, now, the most truthful headline you’ll ever read. A pair of shoes for Christmas: ‘It’s a small thing, but it makes a huge difference’:
At an elementary school in Huntsville on Thursday, a boy about 8 years old went to his little brother’s pre-K classroom and approached the teacher. He said his little brother didn’t have shoes that fit, and asked if it would be OK if they went to the on-campus HEALS clinic. He’d heard the HEALS staff gave out shoes.
The 4-year-old brother was wearing a pair of worn-out shoes that were four sizes too big, and a too-big pair of athletic socks that were dirty and full of holes.
“The little brother was so upset and embarrassed by the whole situation that he started crying,” said Pam Clasgens, development director with HEALS, a local nonprofit organization that provides school-based medical and dental care for children.
If you’re looking for a charity, this one will make a lot of kids very happy.
I’ve been busy with work, so there are just the regular things to read feature. It happens.
The story starts like this:
Missouri is willing to offer Boeing as much as $1.7 billion in incentives over the next two decades in an effort to land production facilities for the 777X. The proposal is the latest in a series of offers from states trying to woo the jet assembly plant and the thousands of jobs it could bring.
Huntsville is one of several locations competing to be the new home for the Boeing production facility after union members in Washington state rejected their latest contract. Other locations reported to be in the running include Missouri, South Carolina, Texas and Utah, and Washington state has maintained efforts to keep the facility there.
The headline is States offer billions to land Boeing facility; Alabama faces Dec. 10 deadline to craft its deal. At least some of the Boeing program is coming here, which is, of course, good news.
Hate this already: ‘Star Wars’ launches official Instagram account with Darth Vader selfie. Darth Vader does not take selfies. He is not a preening, angry teenager. He’s the scariest guy in a galaxy. He’s supposed to be terrifying with the simplest of gesture, intimidating with the slightest whim of his mercurial personality, not a laughable guy in a suit with a good data plan.
Also, the picture makes no sense. Fans spent a lot of time in the comments trying to figure it out.
I can’t embed this video, apparently, but it is perhaps the craziest thing you’ll see today. Nigerian man rescued from sunken boat after three days trapped at bottom of Atlantic.
Like stop motion? Here’s how you move a 400-foot vessel, on land, in tight quarters. Pretty neat stuff out of Mobile.
Still more video, you might remember the best videotaped phone call from the Georgia game two weeks ago. everyone wants to hang out with Nana and Angela now.
Here’s a nice story out of Birmingham, James O. Walker Sr. — a 1957 Auburn graduate who’s father has the pharmacy building named in his honor — gave a couple of Iron Bowl tickets to a young fan. That young man stopped by to thank him for his generosity and ABC 33/40 was there:
I don’t have the opportunity to mention the Crimson White, the student-produced newspaper at the University of Alabama, here a lot, but it is a good publication. Here are their front and back pages today. Inside was this cartoon, which will take some explaining, I’m sure … And here it is:
On Dec. 5, The Crimson White opinion page published a cartoon depicting two football players, one from the Alabama Crimson Tide and one of the Auburn Tigers. Above the depiction was type that read, “This is what happens in Obama’s America.” The cartoon was meant as satire, but unfortunately it has been perceived by many readers as having racist intentions. We sincerely regret this, and apologize to anyone who was offended by it.
The cartoon, in fact, was intended as a lighthearted look at some of the more absurd explanations given for Alabama’s collapse at the end of the Iron Bowl game against Auburn last Saturday. Many fans across the state took to social media and personal platforms to place blame for the team’s loss. To The Crimson White, and much of the student body, the blame was based on ridiculous and unfounded reasons.
They caught a lot of flack, which is unsurprising. And the reaction is probably a bit more knee jerk than necessary. Editor Mazie Bryant continues:
We are taking actions now to correct this mistake, and we are instituting a change in the way we address editorial cartoons. Cartoons, just like the rest of the content on our opinion page, is personal thought. However, cartoons have the ability to reach a wider audience by their pictorial nature, and therefore, we must be vigilant to place a more critical eye on the greater implications and perceptions a cartoon might carry. From this point on, we will be approving cartoons before they are published with a panel consisting of our editorial board. We will judge cartoons based on their power and meaning and decipher which areas need to be revised and expanded upon.
All of it has started good conversation (and probably a few overheated reactions).
It makes me think of the issue of quality. If a cartoon’s purpose isn’t readily apparent to a basic, standard audience then it has little quality of value or merit as commentary. If it fails there it doesn’t give the paper anything.
The secondary art that is to be learned, then, is learning to answer that challenge. If a newspaper cartoon illustrator has to, later, explain his or her meaning so that the audience can reach the desired conclusion and have the correct reaction the cartoon needs work before it is published. As one young reporter said to me today, “It lacks clarity where clarity is definitely needed.”
Elsewhere, The Week in Schadenfreude finds “This may be remembered as our Gettysburg.” The sports section of the Internet can retire now.
